Republicans win fund-raising fight

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Republicans have out-raised Democrats by roughly $92 million, but both parties are bringing in more money than they did for the last midterm election.

The record-setting figures were released Tuesday by the Federal Election Commission even as an independent review of campaign finances suggested that relatively few races are competitive this election season.

"The fact that you don't really need it doesn't seem to reduce the fervor with which they're trying to raise the money," said Larry Makinson, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.

Makinson called it further evidence that big-money donors were less concerned with helping to elect or defeat candidates than they were about influencing policy in the new Congress that will be sworn into office in January. "They're really talking about lobbying; they're not talking about trying to change the results of the election," he said.

Meanwhile, Democratic National Committee officials defended themselves against charges by some House Democrats that they were hoarding money for the 2000 presidential elections instead of investing heavily this year on Congress.

Specifically, some complained that the Democratic National Committee raised only $11 million, instead of the targeted $18 million, for Unity '98, a joint fund-raising effort with the party's House and Senate campaign committees, in part because leaders such as President Clinton and Vice President Gore spent too much time on events benefiting the DNC or other interests.

DNC co-chair Gov. Roy Romer said that Clinton, Gore and Hillary Rodham Clinton attended nearly 200 fund-raisers for individual candidates, 37 events for coordinated campaigns or state parties, 60 more for the national committees, and 12 for Unity '98. Clinton was attending two Unity '98 events expected to raise $1.1 million on Tuesday night.

"The president, the vice president and the first lady have done more than any team in history to raise money and raise issues," Romer said.

According to the FEC study, the most dramatic increase in campaign money has come in unregulated "soft money" donations.

Republican committees had raised nearly $94 million in soft dollars as of Oct. 14, a 144 percent increase over the 1994 elections. The Democrats had raised nearly $79 million, or 84 percent more than in 1994.

A DNC report Tuesday tied the Republicans' "Operation Breakout" issues advocacy campaign, which would be largely funded with soft money, to action by the GOP-controlled Congress to kill tobacco legislation, health care, campaign finance reform, and a minimum wage hike. The GOP initially said it hoped to raise $37 million for that effort. But officials now say it will fall short of that, and may go no higher than $25 million.

"It ought to have been called `Operation Sellout' because they raised the campaign funds by killing four specific pieces of legislation that were important to the American people," Romer charged.

But Tim Fitzpatrick, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, noted that the Democrats have relied on soft dollars for a greater percentage of their overall contributions.

"They are much more reliant on large donations from special interests like unions and liberal advocacy groups," he said.

Overall, the Democrats' reported receipts of nearly $186 million trailed the Republicans' $278 million, but not for want of trying. In addition to the rise in soft money, Democrats raised 40 percent more "hard dollars" that can be spent directly on candidates than they did in 1994.

With the election just a week away, however, some Democrats were concerned that their party hadn't done enough to gain an edge over Republicans in key races.

The DNC began the year more than $15 million in debt as a result of the 1996 campaign finance controversy, and while Romer conceded that had been a drag on the party this year, he also noted that most of the debts have been paid off and that the DNC recently took an additional $3 million in loans to disburse to the House and Senate committees.

"When we set that goal of $18 million on Unity," Romer said, "we gave up a schedule of fund-raising that the DNC had relied on for its own needs. Quite frankly, we have kind of pumped the well dry."

The Center for Responsive Politics report showed that in 60 percent of House races one candidate held a 10-1 fund-raising advantage. It labeled just 15 House races and 9 Senate races "financially competitive."